No one should call for change without outlining an alternative, which is why I thought it was worth spending an additional column to detail an alternative to the current Student Government electoral process.
Taking the approach of America's founding fathers, the aim should be to give formal representation to as many distinct interests as possible while protecting an equal vote for every student. In order to make this guiding principle the cornerstone of our government, SG representation should be based strictly on enrollment in each academic department instead of including living districts.
Individual senators in the current process can represent a college, a class, a residence hall or a ZIP code. Each student, therefore, has a confusing, unequal mix of representatives. Students are unable to identify a single representative as their advocate in the process.
To develop a bond between representatives and constituents, there must be some means by which representatives can take the pulses of their constituencies to gain an understanding of their concerns. Otherwise, what is a representative representing?
Although the national electoral process is able to draw lines around geographic areas, we are in a different situation. SG does not address the typical set of neighborhood issues. ZIP codes do not present any shared interests among the students scattered within their unclear bounds.
I challenge any SG senator whose representation is based on a ZIP code to explain how he or she has identified the interests specifically related to that ZIP code.
Residence halls and the Greek community, whose houses are clustered within ZIP codes, are the exceptions to this. To accept an electoral system that favors these exceptions is to accept a system that is weighted heavily in favor of a minority of the student body.
On the other hand, on-campus academic departments are where we find the commonly held but generally diverse interests that drive the workings of good government. Common goals, common demands for certain resources and even common ideologies are more likely to be found among students who share an area of study.
Let's establish the actual working system of our hypothetical electoral alternative.
To make participation more accessible to students while maintaining ballot security, department offices would become secure locations where ballots are submitted.
Each student would be mailed a ballot and then verify receiving it through the much-discussed secure online system.
Students would be given two weeks to return the paper ballots to their department offices, where UF employees would verify their identifications via Gator 1 Cards and deposit the ballots into secure ballot boxes.
This process would remove the incentive for disruptive campaigning in the middle of campus because there would be no need for election day polls for hapless students to be dragged to.
The cost-effectiveness of this system is merely a bonus. Student body funds would be spent on lockboxes for each department, the secure online system, ballot counters and three mailings: notices before and after the ballot is sent, and the actual ballot.
There you have it: a reformed electoral process that provides for accountable representatives, easy and secure access to voting, respect for campus life and, most importantly, an even playing field on which all interests can compete.
Now all we need is a party of reformers to band together to implement it.
Michael Belle is a political science graduate student. His column appears on Wednesdays.
